Stone of Wisdom, by Kenneth Pedersen

“Stone of Wisdom” is a simple puzzle-based adventure reminiscent of early games from Infocom and its predecessors. Armed with some basic supplies and some useful items he finds along the way, an adventurer attempts to retrieve an artifact that’s been hidden away in a fantasy kingdom.

Gameplay: The setting is largely generic, with the game starting in a troll-infested cave and later expanding to towns of small furry creatures and dwarves. Still, the game makes an effort to avoid hack-and-slash fantasy gameplay, and some of the puzzles involve helping characters the player runs across. The game is well-paced; it’s larger than it initially appears, and the environment is open without making it unclear how to proceed in the game. 5/10.

Mechanics: The puzzles are easy throughout, except for a few guess-the-verb difficulties I had near the beginning (e.g., trying to APPROACH TROLL and dealing with the rope). Clues are provided both within the game and in an external walkthrough, although they probably won’t be necessary. Inventory management was unnnecessarily complicated when climbing the rope and accessing the dwarven section of the game. 4/10.

Presentation: The game didn’t strike me as particularly original or memorable, but it was solidly crafted. The more prominent PCs encountered had distinct personalities; I didn’t notice in typos in the text; and I didn’t encounter any errors while playing. 6/10.

You might be interested in this game if: You like old-school adventures with easy puzzles.